JPS6133419A - Transfer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To decrease the transfer area of a wafer and as well to eliminate the affection of dust upon the wafer, by providing a means for holding a transferred material, a pivotable arm connected to the former and a means for rectilinearly moving the arm. CONSTITUTION:A wafer 16 which has been previously aligned, is fed into by means of a parallel motion linkage 1 without the posture of the wafer being altered, and an angular amount which is obtained by converting the movement of a rectilinear motion guide 4 with the use of a pinion 12 is transmitted to a reciprocating motion linkage 6 to rotate an arm in the parallel motion linkage 1 by means of a parallel motion lever control rod 7 so that the trajectory 17 of wafer supply transfer motion is obtained. Further, a hand block 2 is lowered in association with the motion of a cylindrical cam 5 to disengage the pinion 12 from the parallel motion linkage 6 to obtain a rectilinear motion 18. Further, the pinion 12 is engaged with the parallel motion linkage 6 to advance the rectilinear motion guide 4 to obtain an empty hand retrieving motion 19. Thereafter, the hand block 2 is lowered to obtain a rectilinear retraction 20 while the parallel motion linkage 1 is left to be stopped.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a transport device, and more particularly to a transport device conveniently used for transporting pre-aligned wafers to a wafer chuck in semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

2. Description of the Related Art Rotary type conveyance devices and linear type conveyance devices are known as conveyance devices for conveying preliminarily aligned wafers to wafer chucks in semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

The rotary transfer device requires a large area to transfer the wafer from the pre-alignment position to the chuck, and the means for taking out the rear chamber hand that receives and passes the wafer onto the chuck is upward. There is only a way to escape.

If the wafer is picked up on the top side or on the bottom side, the receiver is placed after handing over.
The structure is such that the suction cup is expanded to a position beyond the outer diameter of the sea urchin in a plane direction, and then escapes upward, so if the former is the case, damage to the surface of the sea urchin will occur due to suction on the exposed surface, and if the latter is the suction cup's escape mechanism in the plane direction. Since it is located above the wafer, there is a problem in that dust generated by its operation falls on the wafer.

On the other hand, in a linear transfer device, the linear slider is located above the wafer and moves above the wafer transfer path, so dust generated from the slider and the feeding mechanism is scattered onto the wafer exposure surface or precision parts located below. There was a possibility that it would.

An object of the present invention is to provide a transfer device that can locally reduce the area required to transfer a wafer from a pre-alignment position to a chuck, and that can avoid the influence of dust generated from the transfer device on the wafer. Our goal is to provide the following.

Preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. 1 and 2 are a perspective view and a schematic plan view, respectively, of the conveying device of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a parallel motion arm, 2 is a handling block, 3 is a hand vertical guide block that has a guide that allows the hand block 2 to move up and down and is fixed to a linear guide, 4 is a linear guide, and 5 is a cylindrical cam. , 6 is a reciprocating motion link, 7 is a parallel motion link operating rod, 8 is a mechanical sequence track, 9 is a belt, 10 is a belt pulley which is a power source, 11 is a wafer holding hand, 12 is a guide block at the top and bottom of the hand Installed pinion, 13 is rack,
14 is a cylindrical cam operating lever; 15 is a member that connects the belt and the cylindrical cam operating lever; 16 is a wafer; 17 is a trajectory centered on the wafer that transports the wafer at the upper position of the hand;
18 is the locus of the midpoint of the left and right wafer suction hands 11 after the wafer is set in a predetermined position and the hand is lowered to the lower position;
19 is the trajectory of the midpoint of the left and right wafer suction hands 11 for raising the empty hand that has released the wafer to the upper position and returning it to the timing position;
Reference numeral 20 indicates a locus of the midpoint of the left and right wafer suction hands 11 that operate to hold the wafer whose prealignment has been completed in the wafer prealignment device at the lower position.

In FIG. 1, one of the four supporting points of the parallel movement link l to which the 11 wafer suction hands are fixed is fixed to a round shaft, and that shaft is supported both radially and thrust by the hand block 2. In addition, the shaft is slidably and radially rotatably supported by the hand vertical guide block 3 at one point in the hand block 2, and the other end of the shaft is fixed to the parallel movement link operating rod 7, and the reciprocating link 6 are dot-connected. In other words, the second hand block can be moved up and down, and the parallel motion link can be operated by the operation of the reciprocating motion link. Further, since the hand vertical guide block 3 is fixed to the straight guide 4, the hand block 2 can move straight forward and backward.

In addition to the linear guide 4, a cylindrical cam 5 is fixedly supported,
With the hand block 2 placed on top of the hand block 2, the cylindrical cam 5 operates so that the hand block 2 can be stopped at three positions: lower, middle, and upper.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the linear movement of hand block 2 and the connection and separation of reciprocating link 6, and the state shown in the figure is the state in which hand block 2 is lowered to the lower stage. In the illustrated state, the linear movement link 7 and the reciprocating movement link 6 are in a concentrated state. When the linear movement guide is moved backward in this state, the pinion 12 rotates (180°) by the amount of movement, but the pinion 12 is disengaged. , 6 reciprocating links are not operated. These are the states 18 and 20 in FIG. Next, when the hand block 2 is raised to the upper stage, the reciprocating block 6 is connected to the throat nion 12 via the bin clutch since it is set to the hand block 2. When the hand block 2 is moved forward in this state, the reciprocating link 6 operates in accordance with the amount of movement, and the state 17.19 in FIG. 2 can be created.

Further, as shown in FIG. 1, the cylindrical cam 5 is connected to the cylindrical cam operating lever 14 and the belt connecting lever 15, and the rollers configured in the cylindrical cam operating lever 14 and the belt connecting lever 15 are connected to each other. rolls against the side of the 8 sequence track. The cylindrical cam 6 is held at a fixed position when the vehicle is moving along the straight section of the sequence track 8, and when it enters the arc portion of the sequence track, the cylindrical cam rotates by the same amount (180") as the belt circulates. In other words, when the rollers of the belt connecting lever 15 reach these two arc parts, the hand block 2 moves from the lower stage to the center of the arc, from the middle stage to the upper stage, and also creates the reverse action of the above operation at the other arc part. The figure shows the sequence of the same device.

Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the operation of the present invention seen from a plane. The 16 wafers aligned by the pre-alignment device can be fed without changing their posture by the parallel motion link 1, and in addition, by the linear guide 4. By converting the amount of linear movement into a rotation angle by pinion 12 and transmitting the obtained rotation angle to the reciprocating link shown in FIG. By rotating the arm of the motion link, 17 wafer feeding and transport trajectories can be obtained. In addition, the same device that sent 16 wafers into the sky above the desired position temporarily stops at the middle position from the operation of the cylindrical cam 5, descends to the lower position, and when the hand descends to the lower stage, they are joined via the bin clutch at the upper stage position. The 12 pinions and the 6 reciprocating links that were in the relationship are separated, and the straight-backward movement 18 can be obtained while the parallel movement links stop operating.

After the straight-back motion is completed, the hand block 2 is raised from the lower position to the upper position by the operation of the cylindrical cam 5, and the pinion 12 and the reciprocating link 6 enter into a connected relationship at the upper position via the bin clutch. When the linear guide 4 is moved forward in this state, the 6 reciprocating link operates, that is,
A straight forward movement and an empty hand retrieval operation (No. 19) in which the arm of the parallel movement link No. 1 rotates in the opposite direction to that in the case of supply and conveyance are entered. When this operation end point is reached, the cylindrical cam 5 operates, the handling block 2 moves to the lower stage, and the bin clutch is disengaged, and while the parallel movement link is stopped at that position, straight backward movement 20 is obtained, and the end point is reached. The cylindrical cam No. 5 operates, the hand block No. 2 temporarily stops from the lower position to the middle position, and after receiving the wafer No. 16, enters the above-mentioned wafer supply and transport trajectory No. 17 from the upper stage.

The present invention is a two-circulation type device that incorporates all mechanical sequences, but by having an independent drive means for this parallel motion link, the desired conveyance positions can be changed from two to four locations. Can be expanded.

As explained above, by sequentially combining parallel motion links, reciprocating motion links, cylindrical cams, linear sliders, etc., the wafer can be transported without changing its posture, and the effects of dust and heat on the wafer can be eliminated. This has the effect that the device itself can be made smaller.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the conveying device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the conveying device of the present invention, FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between the parallel motion link and the reciprocating motion link, and FIG. FIG. 5, which is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between the cam, bottle clutch, and reciprocating link, is a sequence of operations. 1 is a parallel movement link, 2 is a hand block, 3 is a hand vertical guide block, 4 is a linear guide, 5 is a cylindrical cam,
6 is a reciprocating motion link, 7 is a parallel motion link operating rod, 8 is a mechanical sequence track, 9 is a belt, 10 is a power source (belt pulley), 11 is a wafer suction hand, 1
2 is a pinion, 13 is a rack, 14 is a cylindrical cam operating lever, 15 is a connecting member, 16 is a wafer, and 17 to 20 are handling trajectories.

Claims (6)

[Claims] (1) A conveyance device comprising: a holding means for holding an object to be conveyed; a pivotable arm connected to the holding means; and a means for linearly moving the arm. (2) The conveying device according to claim 1, wherein the arm is movable up and down so as to define at least two vertical positions. (3) The means for linearly moving the arm,
2. The conveying device according to claim 1, comprising a linear guide and a guided gear that engages with the guide. (4) The means for linearly moving the arm,
A conveying device according to claim 1, comprising a cylinder. (5) The conveyance device according to claim 1, wherein the pivot movement of the arm is performed in relation to linear movement of the arm. (6) The conveyance device according to claim 1, wherein the pivot movement of the arm is performed by a cylinder.